Credit Suisse allowed to do trades in Vietnam
HO CHI MINH CITY - Credit Suisse Group said Thursday that it had received permission from the Vietnamese authorities to trade stocks and bonds in the Southeast Asian country, the latest foreign investor aiming to tap into a surge in interest in the nation's markets.
The second-biggest Swiss bank said a unit of the Vietnamese State Securities Commission had given it securities- trading code certificates, allowing the firm to trade domestic equities and government and corporate bonds. UBS, the biggest Swiss bank, and Merrill Lynch, the world's second-biggest securities company, made similar announcements this year.
The Ho Chi Minh City Securities Trading Center has surged in market value from less than $1 billion at the start of 2006 to more than $7.9 billion through today. The number of stocks on the exchange has doubled this year to 67, while the bourse's VN Index has jumped 146 percent in 2006, reaching a record close Thursday of 757.17.
"Capital markets development is the next phase of Vietnam's economic evolution," Jose Camacho, Asia-Pacific vice chairman for Credit Suisse, said in a statement.
The Vietnamese economic growth rate has exceeded 7 percent annually since 2002, raising per-capita income from $440 to $715, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Growth this year may reach 8.2 percent, the Vietnamese Minister of Planning and Investment, Vo Hong Phuc, said Thursday in Hanoi during a meeting of countries and agencies that provide Vietnam with grants and low- interest loans. The annual meeting of the so-called Consultative Group on Vietnam was to conclude Friday with an announcement of a new figure for pledged grants and loans.
The Vietnamese goal is to "bring our country out of the state of underdevelopment," Phuc told the group, citing a target of annual growth of as much as 8 percent from until 2010 to push the Vietnamese per-capita gross domestic product to as much as $1,100.
The country sold its first foreign currency-denominated bond in 2005, with demand exceeding supply by more than six times and Credit Suisse leading the banks that managed the sale.
The Vietnamese government also "plans to privatize a large number of economically viable state-owned enterprises," Vietnam Holding, a fund listed in Britain, said this week in releasing its results.
"The stock exchanges in Vietnam are expected to undergo an ongoing expansion upon the listing of these former state-owned enterprises, which should result in a substantial increase in liquidity," Vietnam Holding said.
On Wednesday, the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology, a formerly wholly state-owned company in which Intel now has a stake, became the biggest stock on the exchange when it listed 60.8 million shares.
Shares in the company, known as FPT, climbed 5 percent Thursday, raising its market value to $1.59 billion. Thu Duc Housing Development Joint Stock listed 17 million shares Thursday, with the stock closing at 300,000 dong, or $18.65.
Companies have pushed "to list before January 2007, as after that time the tax incentives available to listed companies are to be removed," the World Bank said.
By Jason Folkmanis - Bloomberg News - December 14, 2006.
|